Draft Horse Confirmation

hi George, I think you are smart to want to continue to learn about the animals and confirmation is a fasicnateing subject. Many confirmational flaws or defects don’t seriously limit a horses productive use or life. When we breed our animals or begin to buy young mares however, it is smart to start to consider how various flaws may add up. I think I begin to see things and understand a little, until I am around my 72 year old horse vet who tries to explain the meaning of every angle and the relationship of ever bone to the others.

To really say much in detail a person may well want more photos from different angles. Even then if they were there they would watch the horse walk and move to pick up more.

Like you said they work great – and they look great.

First I would like to confirm that we are talking about conformation…correct?:D

I also think that the way an animal is built is important, and I will make a few comments, but there are so many environmental and physical affects that can alter the animal’s effectiveness more than their natural conformation.

I like the way your horses stand, at least from the side view, with their front feet solidly baring weight. It would be good to get a front view, of their stance, and chest.

I like the pronounced shoulder, with good seat for collar. I also like the way they hold their heads up in relation to the angle of their shoulder.

I am partial to this style of horse with the deep chest and long barrel, with legs that are not too long.

Proportionately, I think this conformation provides excellent power through muscle mass on the hinds, with a long spinal lever against the ballast of the deep chest. They may not be the best for long light loads like wagon trips to town, or even haying, not that their conformation would preclude that, but they are excellently built for work such as plowing and logging.

I know folks who prefer short coupled, long-legged horses, and in some cases that conformation may have advantages, but all-in-all it really make a difference that the animals can move freely, and unless you are breeding to meet some standard, then variations in body type are insignificant (in my humble opinion:rolleyes:). That’s not to say that I don’t look for the details that I laid out above.

Carl

Proportionately, I think this conformation provides excellent power through muscle mass on the hinds, with a long spinal lever against the ballast of the deep chest.

This body type is low and long. This gives the horse a lot of weight ahead of the hips to ballast against the power in their hind ends. As I have mentioned in other posts, horses lift their front end up on every stroke of a hind leg. They do this using the spine, based on the fulcrum at the hip.

If horses have long legs and short bodies then the hinds have more leverage over the front end, and therefore they aren’t as able to use the weight of the front end as ballast against the heavy load. These high and short horses have better stride, and when used on light loads that don’t tax their weight to power ratio, like wagons etc., they have advantages over the long and low farm style.

I think that horses built such as yours, and mine, have a body type that lends itself more efficiently to the varied work of the diversified farm that we run.

I am not saying this is the ultimate conformation, nor am I claiming that your horses are built perfectly, nor mine for that matter, I am just trying to point out some of the features of conformation that I look at, and seek to find in horses that I want to work.

Carl